Anything can happen, right? The extraordinary Golden State Warriors can be cruising to a victory over the N.B.A.’s worst team and, within 12 unforeseen basketball minutes, have to escape Philadelphia and the 7-41 76ers on a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by Harrison Barnes.

“If the gods delivered what should have happened, we probably should have lost, because that’s what happens when you mess around with the game and the ball,” said Warriors Coach Steve Kerr, who this season was home recovering from complications of back surgery for much of his team’s defiance of the won-lost odds, if not the basketball gods.

This failed divine intervention happened on Saturday night, about 24 hours before the 44-4 Warriors shook off a slow start to defeat the Knicks, 116-95, at Madison Square Garden in the annual Stephen Curry-Once-Longed-to-Play-Here Classic.

If this were boxing, Curry would be the holder of all flashy belts: league championship, most valuable player and leader in individual jersey sales. In the latter category, he replaced LeBron James, who recently created a whole new distinction with his silent directive for the Cleveland Cavaliers’ management to fire Coach David Blatt.

You don’t think James is capable of telepathic authority? Hear him out on the subject of brain power.

“What do you guys want me to do?” James asked reporters the other day in a blessed-is-me declaration that only Donald Trump could have served up with less humility. “Turn my brain off because I have a huge basketball I.Q.?”

While James reiterated that he did not have Blatt’s blood on his hands, the narrative was already shifting. A robust media campaign seems to have succeeded in asserting that the Cavs were not in good enough shape to habitually run fast breaks and didn’t have the faintest idea of what their roles were in the compiling of a disreputable 30-11 record under Blatt.

In the wake of Saturday night’s 117-103 blowout of the San Antonio Spurs, it has apparently taken Tyronn Lue, the new coach, about a week to fix everything, reaffirming the Cavs’ capability of delivering Cleveland’s first major professional sports title since 1964.

After losing two games to the Warriors — including the 34-point blowout at home on Jan. 18 that unofficially sealed Blatt’s fate — and a closer decision to the Spurs in San Antonio, the Cavs finally have a victory against one of the teams considered most likely to emerge from the Western Conference in June.

But are the defending champion Warriors so good that they are chasing history more than pacing the top contenders? Are they in a dynastic league of their own, much like the 72-10 Chicago Bulls of 1995-96?

What Kerr, who hit a few open jumpers for that Bulls team, noticed watching these Warriors from home was that success was building on itself.

“It was apparent right away that we were better this year than last year,” he said Sunday evening outside the visitors’ locker room at the Garden before Curry’s cold shooting (5 for 17) was offset by Klay Thompson’s 34 points and Draymond Green’s triple-double (20 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists).

On top of embarrassing the Cavs at home, the Warriors overwhelmed the Spurs by 30 last week in Oakland. Resting a sore knee, Tim Duncan did not play at Golden State or Cleveland, and the Spurs surrendered a combined 237 points, reminding us that LaMarcus Aldridge is not the rim protector Duncan has been and still must be, with his 40th birthday looming in April.

That should be an unsettling thought for Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich, who nonetheless sees the folly in overreacting to any one or two games almost three months before the start of the playoffs, a season unto itself. In Cleveland on Saturday night, Popovich certainly did not disavow his thinly veiled critique of the Blatt dismissal, which came after the Golden State rout.

“I’m glad my general manager wasn’t in my locker room, or I might have gotten fired,” he said, sarcastically echoing other veteran coaches who thought the canning of Blatt, who made the finals in his rookie N.B.A. season with a crippled roster, insulted the coaching profession at large.

In James’s defense, Blatt might have better acknowledged the conceit of American (or N.B.A.) exceptionalism, and not bristled whenever questioned about his league rookie status. Also that he was hired without the input of James, who returned to Cleveland weeks after the fact.

That James preferred Lue, never a pro head coach, spoke volumes about how impressed he was with Blatt’s Euroleague titles. Now Lue has the mission of executing James’s win-it-all mandate, albeit with James’s blessing and a re-energized body language that has already snapped his teammates to attention.

No matter how dominant the Warriors have been, to win another title, they will eventually have to play in the finals a team that has been galvanized by three uplifting playoff rounds.

That would be four months from now, a sporting eternity. Drawing even quasi-conclusions from a game here, a blowout there, is useless, Kerr said, adding, “The main thing you do is try to get better.”

It is no secret that the N.B.A. postseason, for a variety of reasons, has long been the most predictable in major professional sports. Since 1985, nine franchises have won titles, compared with 18 in Major League Baseball, 15 in the N.F.L. and 14 in the N.H.L.

Most N.B.A. seasons begin with a small handful of finals contenders. This one is no different, with the Warriors, the Spurs and the Cavs far and away the heavy betting favorites. Oklahoma City cannot be dismissed. The Los Angeles Clippers in the West and the Toronto Raptors and the Chicago Bulls in the East could make things interesting, but don’t hold your breath.

In the parlance of the Republican primary season, everyone else is, at best, Chris Christie or, more likely, Mike Huckabee.

In the meantime, we have the Warriors’ pursuit of the 72-10 Bulls to entertain us, and Kerr should remember that there is a Super Bowl and March Madness to deal with before the N.B.A. playoffs. The gods aren’t indifferent, or crazy. Just patient.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section D, Page 3 of the New York edition with the headline: Warriors’ League of Their Own Needs Time: Four Months . Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe